The Evolution of Love Part 7

No husband e'er shall rob me of my pleasure, None can resist me, what I wish I gain, All do I love and never will refrain Spite husbands' wrath to rob them of their treasure.

It may seem strange at first sight that this enthusiastic exponent of pure love should have led such a double life. But Sordello's conduct is not in the least paradoxical; in accordance with the tendency of the period, he carefully distinguished in his own heart between s.e.xuality and love; before the one he lay prostrate, unable to find words enough in self-depreciation, so that he might the more exalt his mistress; but with respect to all other women he was a mere sensualist. We read that although he was "an expert in the treatment of women" in her presence his voice forsook him and he lost all self-control. Petrarch, who--while living with a very earthly woman--extolled all his life long a lofty being whom he called Laura, was akin to Sordello, although he was a far less brutal character. The latter approached the type of the seeker of love, the Don Juan.

In a tenzone between Peirol and the Dauphin of Auvergne, the former maintains that love must die at the moment of its consummation. "I cannot believe," he says, "that a true lover can continue to love after he has received the last favour." (Otto Weininger agrees with this.) But Peirol winds up with the subtle suggestion that though love be dead, a man should always continue to behave as if he were still in love.

The troubadours never weary of drawing a line between _drudaria_ and _luxuria_, pure love and base desire. _Mezura_, seemliness, is contrasted with _dezmezura_, licentiousness. Pure love is regarded as the creator of all high values, luxuriousness as their destroyer. In the same way the German minnesingers distinguished between "low" love and "high" love.

As both cultured minds and the upper cla.s.ses, contemning s.e.xuality, acknowledged spiritual love only, it follows as a matter of course that the avowal of such sentiments became good form; the motif that the honour of the beloved must be carefully s.h.i.+elded, and that no desire must dim her purity, occurs again and again. But it should not be forgotten that a poet may love a sentiment for its own sake, without being in the least influenced by it. Many a troubadour drew inspiration from an emotion which all praised as the supreme value; even if he had no earthly mistress, he adored the sublime sentiment. Not infrequently it happened that a troubadour who had been loud in praise of high love and denunciation of base desire--a trick of his trade--suddenly came to himself and changed his mind. Folquet of Ma.r.s.eilles, for instance, after more than ten years of vain sighing, came to the conclusion that he had been a fool.

Deceitful love beguiles the simple fool And binds with magic thongs the hapless wight; That like a moth lured by the candle-light, He hovers, helpless, round the heartless ghoul.

I cast thee out and follow other stars Full evil was my meed and recompense-- New courage steels my fainting heart, and hence I kneel at shrines which pa.s.sion never mars.

In an interesting poem Garin the Red implores _Mezura_ to teach him the way to love purely and n.o.bly; but he is anything but pleased with his instructress, and comes to the conclusion that her whole wisdom is "just good form" and nothing else.

But by my merry mood impelled I kiss and dally night and morn And do the things I feel compelled To do--or else, with tonsure shorn, I'd seek a cloister....

Elias of Barjols, finding that his love will never be returned, and having no mind to sigh all his life in vain, renounces love altogether.

"I should be a fool if I served love any longer!"

"All you lovers are fools!" exclaimed another. "Do you think you can change the nature of women?" This is one of the very rare criticisms of woman; as a rule we hear only of her angelic perfection, wisdom, beauty and aloofness.

The distinguished poet Marcabru was a woman-hater, and enemy of love from the very beginning. He said of himself that he had never loved a woman and that no woman had ever loved him.

The love which is always a lie And deceiver of men, I decry And denounce; I had more than enough.

Can you count all the evil it wrought?

When I think of it I am distraught.

What a madman I was to believe, To sigh, to rejoice and to grieve; But no longer I'll squander my days, We have come to the parting of the ways. Etc.

He was indefatigable in abusing the tender pa.s.sion, and had a great deal to say about the immorality of women. But it is characteristic of the strong public opinion of the time that even this misogynist (who, perhaps, after all was only a disappointed man) praised "high love."

The subject also found its theorists, prominent among whom was the court-chaplain Andreas, who wrote a very learned book on love in Latin.

He expressed in propositions and conclusions what the contemporary poets expressed in verse, proving thereby that spiritual love was not merely a poetic fiction but the profoundest belief of the period, supported by the full complement of its philosophical weapons. "In the whole world there is no good and no courtliness outside the fountain of love.

Therefore love is the beginning and foundation of all good." He also proved that a n.o.ble-minded man must be a lover, for if he were not, he could not have attained virtue. "Love disregards all barriers, and makes the man of low origin the equal and superior of the n.o.bleman."

This conception of spiritual n.o.bility, which was later on perfected in the theory of the _cor gentil_, only existed in Provence and in Italy; it remained unknown in France and Germany.

Andreas drew a distinction between base love, the _amor mixtus sive communis_, and pure love, the _amor purus_. "Love," he maintained, fully agreeing with the poets, "gives to a man the strength of chast.i.ty, for he whose heart is br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with the love of a woman, cannot think of dallying with another, however beautiful she may be." He proved from substance and form that a man cannot love two women. In the _Leys d'Amors_, a voluminous fourteenth-century Provencal treatise, largely a text-book of grammar and prosody, we read: "And now lovers must be taught how to love; pa.s.sionate lovers must be restrained, so that they may come to realise their evil and dishonourable desires. No good troubadour, who is at the same time an honest lover, has ever abandoned himself to base sensuality and ign.o.ble desires." The same author opined that a troubadour who asked his lady for a kiss, was committing an act of indecency. On the other hand, Andreas was very broad-minded in drawing the line between both kinds of love, allowing kisses, and even more, in the case of true love. (The best troubadours disagree with him in this respect.)

A scholasticism of love, modelled on ecclesiastical scholasticism and subst.i.tuting the beloved woman for the Deity, was gradually evolved.

Love, veneration, humility, hope, etc., were the sacrifices offered at her shrine. She was full of grace and compa.s.sion, and was believed in as fervently as was G.o.d. Some of the poets were animated by a curious ambition "to prove" their feelings with scholastic erudition, and more especially by the later, Italian, school, _amore_, _cor gentil_, _valore_, were conceived as substances, attributes, inherent qualities, etc. The allegories of _amore_ played a prominent part, and spoiled many a masterpiece. The German poets steered clear of these absurdities, which even Dante did not escape.

At the famous courts of love, presided over by princesses, the most extraordinary questions relating to love were discussed and decided with a ceremonial closely following the ceremonial of the petty courts of law. Andreas preserved for us a number of these judgments, some of which prove the really quite obvious fact that love and marriage are two very different things, for if spiritual love be considered the supreme value, matrimony can only be regarded as an inferior condition. And it was a fact that in the higher ranks of society,--the only ones with which we are concerned,--a marriage was nothing but a contract made for political and economical reasons. The baron desired to enlarge his estate, obtain a dowry, or marry into an influential family; no one dreamed of consulting the future bride, whom marriage alone could bring into contact with people outside her own family. To her marriage meant the permission to s.h.i.+ne and be adored by a man who was not her husband. "It is an undeniable fact," propounded Andreas as _regula amoris_, "that there is no room for love between husband and wife," and Fauriel translated a pa.s.sage as follows: "A husband who proposed to behave to his wife as a knight would to his lady, would propose to do something contrary to the canons of honour; such a proceeding could neither increase his virtue nor the virtue of his lady, and nothing could come of it but what already properly exists."--Another judgment maintained "that a lady lost her admirer as soon as the latter became her husband; and that she was therefore ent.i.tled to take a new lover." At the court of love of the Viscountess Ermengarde, of Narbonne, the problem whether the love between husband and wife or the love between lovers were the greater, was decided as follows: "The affection between a married couple and the tender love which unites two lovers are emotions which differ fundamentally and according to custom. It would be folly to attempt a comparison between two subjects which neither resemble each other, nor have any connection." A husband declared: "It is true, I have a beautiful wife, and I love her with conjugal love. But because true love is impossible between husband and wife, and because everything good which happens in this world has its origin in love, I am of opinion that I should seek an alliance of love outside my married life." All this was not frivolity, but the only logical conclusion of dualistic eroticism, incapable of blending sensuality and love. It was equally logical that love between divorced persons was not only regarded as not immoral, but as perfectly right and justifiable; it was even decided that "a new marriage could never become a drawback to old love." In the old novel, _Gerard of Roussillon_, the princess, beloved by Gerard, is married to the emperor Charles Martel, and compelled to part from her knight. At their last meeting, before a number of witnesses, she called on the name of Christ and said: "Know ye all that I give my love to Sir Gerard with this ring and this flower from my chaplet. I love him more than father and husband, and now I must weep tears of bitter sorrow." After this they parted, but their love continued undiminished though there was nothing between them but tender wishes and secret thoughts.

Matrimony had no advantage over the love-alliance, not even the sanction of the Church. A love-alliance was frequently accompanied by a ceremony in which a priest officiated. Fauriel describes--without mentioning his source--such a ceremony as follows: "Kneeling before his lady, with his folded hands between hers, he dedicated himself to her service, vowing to be faithful to her until death, and to s.h.i.+eld her from all harm and insults as far as lay within his power. The lady, on her side, declared her willingness to accept his service, promised to devote her loftiest feelings to him, and as a rule gave him a ring as a symbol of their union. Then she raised and kissed him, always for the first, usually for the last time." The parting of the lovers, too, was a solemn act, resembling in many ways the dissolution of a marriage.

So that our solemn plighted troth When love is dead, we shall not break, We'll to the priest ourselves betake.

You set me free, as I do you, A perfect right then shall we both Enjoy to choose a love anew,

wrote Peire of Barjac.

It was far more easy to dissolve a marriage than a true love-alliance; the husband had only to state that his wife was a distant relation of his, and the Church was ready to annul the contract. But the love-alliance--so Sordello maintained, in a long poem--should be more binding than any marriage.

Only one love a woman can Prefer. So let her choose her man With care. To him she must be true, For choosing once she ne'er may rue.

More binding than the wedding-tie Is love; for a diversity Of causes wedlock may divide, By death alone be love untied.

The idea that marriage and love cannot be combined is therefore only the logical conclusion of the fundamental feeling that love and desire cannot together be projected on one woman.

If matrimonial love had not been questioned, the choice would have lain between two alternatives: the canonisation of matrimony--an expedient chosen by the Church--or a fusion of love and s.e.xuality in our modern sense. The first was a stage which humanity had left behind, for the ideal of absolutely perfect and pure love had already been evolved, and the world was not ripe for the second. The tendency of the rarest minds was in the direction of a further idealisation of love, of freeing it from all earthly shackles and bringing it nearer and nearer to heaven.

One of the early troubadours, Jaufre Rudel, Prince of Blaya, gave a practical ill.u.s.tration to this feeling by falling in love with a lady whom he had never seen. The story of his love was famous for centuries.

He loved a Countess of Tripoli, a Christian princess, and his whole soul was filled with his imaginary picture of her. The _Provencal Biography_ relates that "he wors.h.i.+pped her for all the good the pilgrims had narrated of her." In order to see her, he took the cross and journeyed across the sea; he fell ill on the s.h.i.+p and was carried ash.o.r.e in a dying condition. The countess, on hearing of his great love, hastened to the inn where he lay. As she entered his room, Jaufre regained consciousness; he knew her at once and died happily in her arms. She was so touched by his love that she henceforth renounced the world.--This story is no fairy tale; it is well attested and universally accounted genuine to-day. Jaufre's love, expressed in touching poems, was no _amour de tete_, as it is sometimes called, but a genuine _amour de coeur_, a purely spiritual love which asked nothing of the beloved woman but permission to love her. There are other instances, and even in later times it is not an infrequent occurrence in the case of imaginative people (I need only mention Burger and Klopstock).

We men of the present age look upon this eccentric woman-wors.h.i.+p with uncomprehending eyes. Perhaps we shall feel a little less bewildered when we meet it, stripped of courtly theories and mediaeval fas.h.i.+ons, in some of the great men who are closely connected with our own period; in Michelangelo, in Goethe, and in Beethoven.

The Church, dualistic and ascetic from its inception, waged war against sensuality as the evil of evils. "As fire and water will not mix," wrote St. Bernard, "so spiritual and carnal delights cannot be experienced together." The toleration of matrimony was never more than a compromise; we require no proof that as far as the Church was concerned, chast.i.ty was the only real value. Even Luther took up that position, and to this day Christianity and s.e.xuality remain unreconciled. But both the Catholic and the Protestant professions of faith regarded matrimony as the lesser evil, a concession made to the enemy, in order to render existence possible. It is very interesting to observe the position taken up by the Church in connection with the new woman-wors.h.i.+p which, although it sprang from the most genuine Christian dualism, had for its object not G.o.d, but mortal woman. The logical att.i.tude of the Church would have been one of welcome, for the chaste wors.h.i.+p of woman which regarded matrimony as an inferior state, was her natural ally. Two clerics, the court-chaplain Andreas, and the prolific rhymester Matfre Ermengau, actually elaborated the theory of spiritual love contrary to the spirit of the Church, but both men hastened to utter a timely recantation and recommendation of orthodoxy as the only means of salvation. After establis.h.i.+ng all the desirable details of love according to substance and accidents, Andreas deduced that every love not dedicated to G.o.d was bound to offend Him, and advanced eighteen points against the love of woman, starting with the well-known argument that woman was naturally of a base disposition, covetous, envious, greedy, fickle, garrulous, stubborn, proud, vain, sensual, deceitful, etc. "He who serves love, cannot serve G.o.d," he declared, "and G.o.d will punish every man who, apart from matrimony, serves Venus. What good could come from acting against the will of G.o.d?" Here we are face to face with a grotesque position: the official Church favouring s.e.xuality, that is matrimony, as against the newer and higher standard of ascetic, spiritual love. This att.i.tude was quite logical, if not in the spirit of religion and in contradiction to the principle of asceticism, yet in the spirit of orthodoxy; for "whatever was not for her, was against her."

The brave, Ja.n.u.s-headed abbe was spokesman for the whole clergy, which branded love not projected on G.o.d as _fornicatio_. In his recantation Andreas upheld the previously-despised matrimonial state at the expense of love; "love," he maintained, "destroys matrimony." Matfre did exactly the same thing; after recapitulating in his _Breviari d'Amor_ all the splendid achievements rooted in the cult of woman, he suddenly veered round (at the 27,445th verse):

And Satan blows on their desire, In monstrous flames leaps up the fire, And maddened by the raging fiend, From love of G.o.d and honour weaned, They turn from their Creator's shrine And call their mistresses divine.

With soul and body, mind and sense, They wors.h.i.+p woman's excellence.

Abandoned in her beauty revel, And unawares adore the devil.

Three hundred years later the fanatical Savanorola stormed: "You clothe and adorn the Mother of G.o.d as you clothe and adorn your courtesans, and you give her the features of your mistresses!" which, as we shall presently see, was literally true.

The clergy resisted all counsels of the _cortezia_ and _cavalaria_ with the sure instinct desiring the continuance of existing conditions rather than the victory of the higher conception. Some writers aver that it was partly due to this fact that later on the cult of woman developed into the cult of Mary. Again we are confronted by a process which in the course of time has been repeated more than once: the spiritual-mystical principle of Christianity entered upon a new stage, and took possession of a new and important domain; but the Church, rigid and unyielding, preferred clinging to a past lower stage rather than tolerating any change. Had she been absolutely consistent, her greatest poet would be on the index to-day, for, following his own intuition and ignoring her rigid dogma, he introduced his beloved Beatrice into the Catholic heaven.

The new spiritual love was not without its caricatures. Famous in Provence for many strange exploits, committed in order to please his lady, was the talented Peire Vidal. On one occasion he caused himself to be sewn into a wolfskin and ran about the fields; but he was set upon by dogs and so badly mangled that he nearly succ.u.mbed to his wounds. He was an insufferable braggart, but never had any success in love. The prince of caricatures, however, was the German knight and minnesinger, Ulrich of Lichtenstein. He is responsible for a novel in prose, ent.i.tled _The Service of Woman_, which is faintly reminiscent of Goethe's _Werther_.

As a page he commenced his glorious career by drinking the water in which his lady had washed her hands; later on he caused his upper lip to be amputated because it displeased his mistress, for "whatever she dislikes in me, I, too, hate." On another occasion he cut off one of his fingers and used it, set in gold, as a clasp for a volume of his poems which he sent to her. One of his most famous exploits was a journey through nearly the whole of Austria, disguised as Venus, jousting, dressed in women's clothes, with every knight he met. But in spite of his eccentricities, the tendency of his mind was not at all metaphysical; he craved very obvious favours, but as a rule contented himself with a kind, or even an unkind word. Incidentally, we learn that he was married; but he devoted his whole life to "deeds of heroism" in honour of his lady. Not the great book of Cervantes, as is commonly believed, held up mediaeval court life to ridicule and destroyed it as an ideal, but the life and exploits of this knight and minnesinger. The same spirit animated Guilhem of Balaun. At the command of his lady he had a finger-nail extracted and sent to her, after which he was re-admitted to her favour.

Spiritual love was discovered by the Provencals, but the greater and profounder Italian poets developed it and brought it to perfection. What had been a nave sentiment with the troubadours, became in Dante's circle a system of the universe and a religion. The Italian poet, Sordello, who wrote in Provencal, may be regarded as the connecting link, and the forerunner of the great Italians. He died in the year of grace 1270, and Dante, who was almost a contemporary, immortalised his name in the _Divine Comedy_. The doctrine on which the _dolce stil nuovo_ was based pointed to the love of a n.o.ble heart as the source of all perfection in heaven and earth. Purely spiritual woman-wors.h.i.+p was regarded as an absolute virtue. The words of the last of the Provencal troubadours, Guirot Riquier, "Love is the doctrine of all sublime things"--was developed into a philosophy. I will quote a few characteristic verses, omitting Dante for the present. One of the finest lyric poems of all tongues and ages, written by Guido Guinicelli, begins as follows:

Within the gentle heart love shelters him, As birds within the green shades of the grove; Before the gentle heart in nature's scheme Love was not, or the gentle heart ere love.

(_Transl. by_ D.G. ROSSETTI.)

Cino da Pistoia says in epigrammatic brevity:

You want to know the inmost core of love?

'Tis art and guerdon of a n.o.ble heart.

A wonderful canzone by Guinicelli contains the following verses:

A song she seems among the rest and these Have all their beauties in her splendour drowned.

In her is ev'ry grace,-- Simplicity of wisdom, n.o.ble speech, Accomplished loveliness; All earthly beauty is her diadem.

This truth my song must teach-- My lady is of ladies chosen gem.

(_Transl. by_ D.G. ROSSETTI.)

And Cavalcanti sings: